Second Choice

The Numbers Don't Add Up

Imogen Ashworth

Her father never asked her for favors, which was exactly why the one he was about to ask should have scared her more than it did.

Imogen knocked on the study door at seven fifty eight, two minutes early out of habit rather than eagerness, and found Nathaniel already seated behind his desk with a folder closed in front of him like it might escape if he let it out of his sight. He didn’t look up right away. That alone told her something was wrong.

“You’re early,” he said finally.

“You said eight.”

“I did.” He gestured at the chair across from him, the same chair she’d sat in as a teenager waiting to hear how disappointing her grades were compared to Celeste’s, though the memory felt sharper this morning than it usually did. “Close the door.”

She closed it and sat, hands folded in her lap the way she’d learned to sit in this room a long time ago, a posture that said she was listening without saying she was also braced for something.

“What’s going on, Dad?”

“It’s nothing serious.” He opened the folder, turned it around so it faced her, and slid it across the desk. “I need a second set of eyes on last quarter’s numbers before they go out to the board next week.”

Imogen scanned the page, and it took her less than ten seconds to see the same discrepancy she’d noticed weeks ago in a different report, a gap between projected revenue and actual revenue that had been quietly filled in with a number that didn’t trace back to anything she recognized.

“This line item,” she said, tapping the page.

“The supplemental design revenue. Where does that come from?”

“It’s a rounding adjustment. Accounting cleans these up every quarter.”

“This isn’t rounding, Dad. This is forty thousand dollars.”

“It’s a technicality.” His voice stayed even, but his hand moved to straighten a stack of papers that didn’t need straightening, a tell she recognized from childhood dinners when he was covering for something he didn’t want to say out loud. “I need you to make sure the design revenue projections in the new line match this number when the board reviews it.”

“Match it how? The actual number from the collection doesn’t come close to this.”

“Then get it closer.”

Imogen looked up at him properly, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, she saw something on her father’s face that unsettled her more than his usual detachment ever had. He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.

“You’re asking me to inflate the numbers,” she said slowly.

“I’m asking you to present them favorably.”

“That’s the same thing with better lighting.”

“Imogen.” He said her name the way he used to when she was small and asked too many questions at the dinner table, a warning wrapped in patience that was thinning by the second. “This company needs a strong quarter. You know that better than anyone, since half of what’s keeping us afloat comes out of that basement of yours.”

Something in her chest tightened at that, half pride and half something closer to being used, though she couldn’t fully separate the two. “If the collection is doing that well, why does the report need padding at all?”

“Because doing well isn’t the same as doing well enough. Not for what’s coming.”

“What’s coming?”

He hesitated, and in that hesitation Imogen felt the floor shift slightly beneath a conversation she’d thought was about spreadsheets and nothing more.

“There are conversations happening,” he said carefully, “about the future of this company. Bigger conversations than one quarter’s numbers. I need this report to hold steady until those conversations are finished. That’s all I’m asking.”

“That’s a lot to ask without telling me what the conversations actually are.”

“You’ll know soon enough. I promise you that.”

“Dad, if something’s wrong with the company, I need to know now, not soon enough.”

“Nothing is wrong with the company.” His tone sharpened, just slightly, just enough that Imogen recognized the same brittle edge from every difficult conversation he’d ever avoided having properly. “I’m handling it. I need you to handle this one report, quietly, and let me deal with the rest.”

Imogen looked down at the folder again, at the number that didn’t belong anywhere she could trace it, and felt the same instinct she’d felt weeks ago when she first caught the smaller version of this discrepancy and told herself it was nothing worth pursuing. She wanted to believe him. She’d spent her whole life wanting to believe him, mostly because the alternative meant confronting exactly how much of this company’s survival had quietly become her responsibility without anyone bothering to tell her that out loud.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll make the design numbers match the report. But I want you to know I don’t like doing this blind.”

“Noted.” Something in his shoulders loosened at her answer, relief he didn’t bother hiding.

“Thank you, Imogen. I mean that.”

“Just tell me one thing. Is this about the merger talk? Nora mentioned Cross Industries came up in a vendor meeting.”

Nathaniel’s jaw tightened, just for a second, before he smoothed his expression back into something neutral.

“Where did she hear that?”

“Does it matter where? Is it true?”

“There have been preliminary discussions. Nothing decided.”

“Preliminary discussions serious enough to need a padded quarterly report?”

“Imogen, I need you to trust me on this. Just for a little while longer.”

She wanted to push harder, demanded the full picture instead of the careful, edited version he kept handing her one piece at a time, but the phone on his desk rang before she could decide how far to take it. Nathaniel glanced at the screen, and whatever color remained in his face drained further at whatever name showed there.

“I have to take this,” he said, already reaching for it.

“Dad—”

“We’ll finish this later.” He waved her toward the door, phone already in his ear, his voice shifting into the smooth, practiced tone he used for anyone outside the family. “Yes, this is Nathaniel Ashworth.”

Imogen rose slowly, folder still in her hands, and moved toward the door, though something kept her from opening it right away. She lingered just long enough to hear the next few words out of her father’s mouth, words that stopped her cold with her hand still on the handle.

“Cross Industries. Yes, of course. We’ve been expecting your call.”

She turned back toward him, but he’d already swiveled his chair away from her, voice dropping lower, more careful, more deliberate than she’d heard him speak in years.

Whatever this call was, it wasn’t preliminary anymore, and it wasn’t the kind of conversation meant for her ears.

“Dad,” she said again, quieter this time. “What’s happening?”

He held up one finger without turning around, a silent command to wait, and Imogen stood frozen in the doorway of her father’s study, the padded numbers in her hand suddenly feeling very small compared to whatever was unfolding on the other end of that phone call.